If you've read Beaver Street, then you're familiar with a character I call "Izzy Singer," a magazine editor and "porno intellectual" who took me under his wing when I went to work for Swank Publications. Izzy, as I explained in the book, showed me that pornography could be "a form of high art that required specialized knowledge and talent to produce."

Last year, I wrote about how Izzy, writing under the pseudonym "Irv O. Neil," had begun publishing on Kindle his short stories about female domination. And I said that one story in particular, "Learning to Be Cruel," had shocked me because Irv/Izzy was clearly writing from the heart, and the story gave me the feeling that he may personally enjoy having sexy young women treat him in the degrading manner that he so graphically and realistically described.

Over the past year, Irv/Izzy has published a number of other such stories on Kindle and has begun to attract some well-deserved attention. This week, along with three other fetish writers, he appeared on a Blog Talk Radio show, In Bed with Dr. Sue. For nearly two hours, they discussed their craft, the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon, and took calls from listeners. It’s an interesting look into one of the darker corners of the publishing biz and a rare opportunity to hear a Beaver Street character speak. You can listen here. Read More

There’s a lot of talk in the writing biz about Amazon’s Kindle, not all of it good. But one thing is undeniable: Kindle has given authors the ability to publish their work at no cost, distribute it globally, and collect royalties on it—without the need of a traditional publisher. In short, it’s changed the rules of the game, and like it or not, e-books, Kindle or otherwise, are the industry’s future.

With that in mind, I downloaded the free Kindle app for PC, invested $2.99, and read a short story titled “Learning to Be Cruel.” Why? Because “Irv O. Neil,” the author of this deranged bit of semi-autobiographical fiction about a middle-aged freelance writer who’s sexually humiliated by a gorgeous young Chinese woman, is “Izzy Singer,” one of the main characters in Beaver Street. It’s his first venture into the realm of Kindle.

In the years that I toiled in pornography, I published a lot of Irv/Izzy’s work in magazines such as D-Cup. But I’ve never read a story of his like this one—due to censorship regulations, I wasn’t allowed to publish stories about humiliation and degradation.

“Learning to be Cruel” shocked me, probably because I got the sense that Irv/Izzy is writing from the heart, and may personally enjoy having sexy young women treat him in a manner similar to what he graphically and realistically describes in the story. (I shall not enumerate the details here.)

Though not my “cup of sleaze,” as Irv/Izzy might say, this skillfully rendered tale has given me additional insight into a character in my own book, showing me a dimension of his personality that even after 27 years, I never fully grasped.

“Learning to Be Cruel” is not only a good companion piece to Beaver Street; it’s the brave work of a man who has mastered the short story form. Or perhaps I should say, a man who’s been enslaved by it. Read More

Well, thanks for the plug, Bob. I appreciate it. Your readers can get more background on my work at http://irvoneil.wordpress.com. I've written a lot of femdom stories like this, but until the Internet, they were destined to appear once in magazines like Leg Action and Leg Show or Cheeks, and then vanish into the dusty stacks of back-issuedom. Or appear on the pay sites of the various magazines, to which there is obviously no ready access for the casual reader. My game plan is to publish a story a month at Kindle, and see how it goes. I hope I can maintain that pace. I don't think the stories in my so-called "Irv O. Neil Erotic Library" will be all femdom, although that element pops up in a lot of my work. By the way, although Learning to be Cruel is obviously heartfelt and draws on my personal feelings in terms of its eroticism, it is not autobiographical, semi or otherwise, and is purely fiction...not that wouldn't mind knowing a girl like my beautiful but cruel Chinese heroine! I just don't think I could actually do most of the things she requires of my male character...then again, under the auspices of the right mistress? Who knows? For now let's just say it's a good rousing "sexual adventure story," a fetishistic updating of the "men's adventure" genre pioneered by one of your subjects in Beaver Street, the legendary Martin Goodman. By the way, I recently read that under the aegis of his company Atlas Comics, he was actually the most prolific producer of pre-Code 1950s horror comics too, and his output pre-dated that of Bill Gaines' company EC, which of course is remembered as the "creme de la creme" of horror comics (if such a term is not an oxymoron).

-
Irv O. Neil

July 15, 2011 10:12 AM EDT

By "semi-autobiographical" I meant that the narrator, Lester, is a freelance writer who spends a lot of time in bookstores.

-
Robert Rosen

July 15, 2011 10:41 AM EDT

Yes, Bob, "he writes freelance and goes to the bookstores" could make up three-quarters of my autobiography. Sigh. And now you see why I prefer writing fiction to memoir!--Irv

-
Irv O. Neil

July 15, 2011 11:22 AM EDT

And middle-aged, Lester is middle-aged, too. You could have made him a 33-year-old computer programmer who haunts video game stores. Or a 70-year-old doctor who likes antiques. Then I wouldn't have said "semi-autobiographical."

Part of what makes the story work is the emotional dynamic of the beautiful young woman calling the middle-aged guy "grandpa," etc. And if I may point out one more autobiographical detail: Lester is "addicted" to buying books that he doesn't need. Also, the picture of you on your blog--you look at that guy and it's not hard to imagine him as Lester. Which is to say, another factor that makes the story work (for me) is the autobiographical closeness of Lester to Irv/Izzy. And there's nothing wrong with being middle aged. Beats the alternative, as they say.

-
Robert Rosen

July 17, 2011 10:34 AM EDT

Hey, I'm glad you liked that little bit of dialogue about her taunting him by calling him "grandpa." And I hope the story is also effective for people who don't personally know me. I won't know about that one way or the other until I get comments from those unknown readers. I hope the reason I haven't heard from them yet is that the story is keeping at least one of their hands very busy, so it's hard to properly type up comments! ;)

-
Irv

July 18, 2011 6:05 AM EDT

I assure you, Irv, even if I didn't know you I'd have still found the story effective, shocking, and disturbing. And as long as people keep downloading "Learning to Be Cruel," I wouldn't worry about reader comments. They're probably just shy.

"Rather like re-reading a favorite detective story ... though you know how the story's going to end, you still wind up willing the events to unfold differently." —David Thompson, Mojo magazine

"You feel like you are inside The Dakota with John Lennon and Yoko Ono." —The Huffington Post

"Captures with disturbing immediacy the pressure of being a celebrity … flirts with brilliance." —J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

"Robert Rosen's gripping account of Lennon's five-year seclusion in the Dakota building makes it impossible any longer to agree with the cozy popular image of him during this period as a devoted father and bread-baking domesticated househusband. This is a portrait of ... the twilight of an idol." —Allan Jones, Uncut magazine

"After reading this book I felt an affinity for Lennon; his life with all its torments, joys and pains was real to me." —Sydney L. Murray, Vision magazine

"An obsessive, corrosive, unforgettable account of Lennon and his menage at the Dakota. Even readers who never bought the air-brushed image of Lennon the benign father and house-husband are likely to experience powerful cognitive dissonance as they read Rosen's chronicle of weirdness, in which the tragic and the absurd are inextricably mixed." —John Wilson, Christianity Today

"What makes this book valuable is the sense that Rosen is providing as honest a characterization as possible—honest enough so that, in spite of Lennon's quirks and foibles, his genius ultimately shines through." —B.A. Nilsson, Metroland

"We become privy to first-hand knowledge about Lennon's final days which has never before seen the light of day ... this book makes for engrossing reading." —Steve Wide, Beat magazine (Australia)

"One of the most fascinating insights in Robert Rosen's book is that John knew that he, in the last half of the Seventies, exercised his greatest power to the extent that he wasn't seen; he was beyond success; he had achieved such fame that his five-year silence hummed more loudly than, say, any of Paul McCartney's appearances in People magazine." —Brian Murphy, Oakland University Journal

Praise for Beaver Street

"Beaver Street is an amazing glimpse into the adult industry." —Stoya

"Enormously entertaining ... Beaver Street captures the aroma of pornography, bottles it, and gives it so much class you could put it up there with Dior or Chanel." –Jamie Maclean, editor, Erotic Review

"Whatever twisted ... fantasy you might've had, you can bet that Rosen once brought it to life in print." —Ben Myers, Bizarre

"Shocking … evocative … entertaining.… A rich account that adds considerable depth and texture to any understanding of how the pornography industry worked." —Patrick Glen, H-Net